Art by Angela

In 2021, I set a goal to recreate a masterpiece every week in my children's book style. I hid two mice inside each one and called them MousterWorks. I plan to sell prints of these paintings along with the picture book I wrote featuring 18 of them (MousterWorks, Gnome Road Publishing, 2025). I also plan to sell Nancy Bess Had a Dress (Claire Annette Noland/ Angela C. Hawkins, Gnome Road Publishing, 2024), which features a savvy young girl in the late 1930's who finds ways to repurpose a flour sack into numerous creations. Complementary to this picture book, I plan to sell paper dolls I illustrated for this book. (Readers can stow the dolls inside the pocket built into the back of the book.) My illustrations always start with a pencil drawing that is scanned into my computer. I then add color using a combination of traditional watercolor and digital ink. I plan to bring a display that shares my process of illustrating picture books. I believe that exposing kids—and their grownups—to fine art connects them to people from the past and present. Art helps us slow down and pay attention to details—including people who might otherwise be invisible. It teaches us to savor life’s ordinary moments. It offers new perspectives and encourages us, in turn, to share our own. Especially as today’s world focuses on our myriad differences, art shows us that there is so much more within us that unites.